


so stay with me and i'll have it made

by zach_stone



Series: i am easy to find 'verse [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Birthday Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, HAPPY BIRTHDAY RICHIE, M/M, Meet Before Derry AU, Minor Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23060833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zach_stone/pseuds/zach_stone
Summary: Richie wakes on March 7, 2001 to the sound of his alarm clock — which fell off the nightstand and onto the pillow next to him thirty minutes ago when he slapped the snooze button in a half-conscious daze — blaring directly into his ear. He groans, rolling onto his back, and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.//Richie wakes up on March 7, 2003 to Eddie shifting around in the bed, untangling their limbs and shoving back the covers. Eddie slides out of their sleep-loosened embrace and kisses Richie on the temple before he gets out of bed, and Richie rolls over so he can smush his face into Eddie’s pillow.--Or, two very different birthdays. A sequel to "I Am Easy To Find."
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: i am easy to find 'verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541572
Comments: 18
Kudos: 383





	so stay with me and i'll have it made

**Author's Note:**

> hello hello! been working on this one all day, and it's been so nice to write in this 'verse again and have fun with mid-twenties reddie again. if you haven't read the first fic in this series, i highly recommend you do so, or you're probably going to be confused. but hey i'm not the boss of u, do whatever u want. honestly, you only need to have read the first two chapters of the first fic before you read this one! it takes place partly before the first chapter, and partly between chapters 2 and 3. 
> 
> content warnings: vague allusions to sex, some minor angst in the first part of the fic but i promise overall it's fluff and sweetness bc that's what richie deserves!

**_March 2001_ **

Richie wakes on March 7, 2001 to the sound of his alarm clock — which fell off the nightstand and onto the pillow next to him thirty minutes ago when he slapped the snooze button in a half-conscious daze — blaring directly into his ear. He groans, rolling onto his back, and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. It takes him a few bleary moments to remember: it’s his birthday. Richie Tozier is twenty-five, officially halfway to fifty, officially closer to thirty than he is to twenty with every passing hour. He lets out a faintly amused huff of air. 

It’s not like birthdays have been particularly exciting for him in the past, god, decade at least. He doesn’t really remember much of his birthdays before his fifteenth, the first he celebrated after his family moved to New York, but he can’t imagine his preteen birthdays were much fun either if they were so unmemorable. In high school Richie didn’t have a ton of friends, and in college he had even less, so he’d mostly just go about his day as normal until his parents sang “Happy Birthday” poorly around a homemade cake for three or, once he was in California, just sang it to him over the phone.

Richie tells himself it doesn’t matter, anyway. Birthdays are just — days, and it doesn’t have to be a big deal, it’s not like he’s having some fucking crisis about being twenty-five, Jesus Christ. But… it _is_ sort of a milestone, right? Maybe he should actually try to do something this year. He doesn’t know _what,_ because, like, who has friends as an adult? Celebrating by himself feels a little sad. He rolls out of bed and shoves his glasses onto his face, wandering out into the hall and heading for the bathroom.

In the mirror, Richie examines his face. He needs to shave, and he looks overtired, but that’s par for the course. His hair’s shaggy and starting to get long again, curling over his ears and at the nape of his neck. He’s tall enough that he has to hunch his shoulders a little to peer at his reflection — he’ll catch himself doing that more and more lately, curling in slightly like he’s trying to shrink into the fucking wall, and he wonders when he went from a loudmouth attention seeker to whatever the fuck he is every moment he’s not standing in front of a microphone. 

He knows why he’s dwelling on this shit right now; the nightmares are always worse the night before his birthday. It’s like fucking clockwork, and it’s usually the same nightmare every time. It’s especially awful because it starts out as a _good_ dream. He’s a kid, all gangly limbs and buck teeth, and he’s standing somewhere in the springtime sunshine. He’s filled with a sense of anticipation, but it’s the good kind — his friends are coming, and he’s so excited that his stupid little kid body is practically vibrating with pent-up energy. Then the minutes tick by, and Richie is still by himself. The dream seems to stretch on forever this way, until the anticipation shrivels into a pit in his stomach. From there, everything goes back to his standard nightmare fare of dark spaces and monster teeth, but the ache in his ribs when he wakes up — that’s always from the first part, lingering. 

Feeling pathetic, Richie splashes water on his face and combs halfheartedly through his hair.

He runs into one of his roommates on his way out the door to work. The guy’s name is Grant, and he wants to be a screenwriter. Richie’s pretty sure he’s currently working as a PA or something at the moment. They don’t really talk.

“See ya,” Richie says as they pass. 

Grant hums. “Hey, Rich, you still owe me your share of the rent,” he says.

“Yeah, I’ll get it to you tonight,” Richie says. He pauses. “It’s my birthday,” he says, for some fucking reason.

Grant blinks at him. “Oh, well, happy birthday.” He continues to walk down the hallway. “Don’t forget that rent.”

“Right.” Richie opens the front door. “Sure thing.” 

When he gets to work, Al hands him an enormous box of tapes to label before he can get in so much as a “hello,” and it’s not until he’s already sitting down at his desk and dumping the tapes out in front of him that Al passes by and says, “Happy birthday, Tozier. You can take an extra fifteen minutes at lunch.”

This is Al’s usual level of acknowledgement on Richie’s birthday, he’s been expecting it — but he must be feeling wildly bold today, because he says, “You know, maybe since it’s my _birthday_ we could talk about the segment idea I —”

“Get to work, Rich,” Al says tiredly, and walks away.

Richie deflates, his mouth still hanging open with the rest of his sentence dying in his throat. He grabs the label maker and a marker and gets to work. 

It’s open mic night at Marco’s, which is a relief — if nothing else, Richie always has a fun time on the little stage, hanging off the mic stand and pretending he’s somewhere bigger and better than a bar in LA. He’s got a tight five that most of the regulars know by heart now, but every once in a while he manages to make a few people really laugh, and he’ll ride that high whenever he can get it. 

The bar’s a bit more crowded than usual for a Wednesday, and he gets a few laughs from people who haven’t heard his set before. Then someone shouts from some hazy corner of the bar, “Why don’t you try being fuckin’ funny!” and Richie’s stomach momentarily turns to ice. He’s gotten heckled plenty of times before, and he always manages to shake it off and usually throw some jibe back at the heckler, but there’s always that brief, instinctive moment of panic when he thinks _oh god, they’re gonna beat my ass._

He slouches into a laid-back, unassuming posture and says, “Aw, come on, you’re gonna heckle a guy on his birthday?” Which isn’t funny at all, but he gets a few chuckles anyway, and decides to just move on while he can.

When he’s done, he sits down at the bar and Marco comes over to set a glass of bourbon in front of him. “Is it really your birthday?” he asks.

Richie nods. “The big two-five,” he says, spreading his fingers to do a single jazz-hand while he scoops up his drink with the other. 

“Well shit, happy birthday, Rich,” Marco says warmly. “Drinks are on me tonight, alright? Whatever you want.” 

Richie smiles at that, the first genuine acknowledgement of his birthday that he’s had all day. “Hey, thanks, man.” 

He proceeds to drink maybe one too many, and when he gets home he’s already tasting the impending hangover in the back of his throat. There’s a note stuck to the phone with his name on it in Sharpie, so he squints down at it. **Tozier – voicemail for you.**

He listens to the voicemail; it’s from his parents, about three hours ago. 

“Hi, honey, happy birthday!” his mom says. “Sorry we missed you, I hope you’re out having fun with friends!”

“Don’t party too hard, son,” his dad’s voice cuts in. 

“We love you, Richie,” his mom says. “Call me tomorrow, okay? Bye-bye.” 

That’s it. He isn’t disappointed, not really — it’s not like he expected a long message, and _he_ was the one who wasn’t around to answer the phone. Still, it twinges a bit, making the hangover-feeling intensify. 

All at once, Richie feels very young. A childish loneliness falls over him, and he hangs up the phone and swallows back the sudden burn of tears. The aching feeling that something is _missing_ hollows out his chest, and that pit is back in his stomach. He doesn’t know what’s supposed to be there, but he feels it most acutely on his birthday, that something’s been carved out of him. 

Or maybe he just needs to go the fuck to sleep. Richie hangs up the phone and heads to his room, where he strips down to his boxers and lays wide awake in bed for hours before he’s able to finally fall asleep.

  
  


**_March 2003_ **

Richie wakes up on March 7, 2003 to Eddie shifting around in the bed, untangling their limbs and shoving back the covers. It’s a Friday, so they both have to work, but Richie’s shift at the radio station isn’t until 10 p.m., so he doesn’t bother trying to actually wake up all the way. Eddie slides out of their sleep-loosened embrace and kisses Richie on the temple before he gets out of bed, and Richie rolls over so he can smush his face into Eddie’s pillow. This is their weekday routine, in the four months since they’ve been living together, and Richie loves it. Their schedules are pretty much exact opposites, which sucks, but these tiny moments that come with a shared space — the smell of Eddie’s shampoo on his pillowcase, the sound of Eddie getting ready for work and trying unsuccessfully to be quiet about it — it’s thrilling, honestly. 

Eddie comes back into the bedroom, and Richie waits for the sound of dresser drawers opening and the clink as Eddie buckles his belt, but instead he hears bare feet padding up to the bed again, and he cracks open one eye. Eddie is standing by the side of the bed, and he places two big steaming mugs of coffee on the nightstand before he climbs right back into bed again, nudging Richie to roll onto his back so Eddie can flop directly on top of him.

“Whatcha doin’, Eds, you gotta leave for work in like ten minutes,” Richie says around a yawn.

Eddie hums. His eyes are closed. “Took the day off,” he says casually. His self-satisfied smirk gives him away, though — he’s making that face he makes when he’s won something. Richie’s just trying to puzzle out what it is he’s won. 

“Why?” he asks.

Eddie opens his eyes at that, and looks at Richie like he’s a fucking moron, which is another familiar Kaspbrakian expression. “Why do you think, dumbass?” When Richie continues to stare at him, Eddie rolls his eyes and says, “It’s your birthday, Rich.”

“So you took the day off work?” Richie repeats dumbly. 

“Yep. And I called Paul with this whole plan to like, bully him into giving you the night off, but it turns out he was already planning to anyway, so we’ve got the day to ourselves,” Eddie says. “Well, your parents invited us over for dinner, but besides that.”

Richie blinks, as it all falls into place. Now that he has Eddie back in his life, and the vague impressions of other memories from his childhood, he knows that he used to have this, once. Friends who cared, who wanted to spend his birthday with him, who made it a day he looked forward to. He thinks about his annual birthday nightmare, and he’s pretty sure it was a little different last night, but he can’t focus on that just yet because Eddie is cuddled up to him and acting like this isn’t already the nicest thing someone’s done for him on his birthday in more than a decade. 

He feels the prickling tightness behind his eyes and at the back of his nose, and his lip trembles. Eddie notices, because the smug look slides off his face and he pushes himself up onto his elbows, staring at Richie in mild alarm. 

“Richie?” he says. “Hey, are you — I’m sorry, did you not want — do you _want_ to go to work or something? I should’ve asked, I was just trying to surprise you —”

“Oh my god,” Richie says, covering his face with his hands. “No I don’t want to go to work, I’m not — I’m not _upset,_ I promise, just gimme a second —”

Eddie clambers off of him, and Richie makes a small, bereft noise, but then Eddie is tugging him up into a sitting position and hugging him, and Richie snuffles embarrassingly against the side of Eddie’s neck, still crying a little. 

“You good, big guy?” Eddie asks. He sounds less alarmed now, but still hesitant.

“Yeah,” Richie says. He laughs sheepishly. “Fuck, sorry. You can’t ambush me with birthday presents when I’m still mostly asleep, man.” He lifts his head and Eddie smiles at him, bemused.

“I didn’t even give you a present yet,” he says.

Richie bumps his nose against Eddie’s. “Believe me, Eds, you did.” 

Eddie rubs Richie’s back. “So what do you want to do today? Like I said, we have dinner with your parents, but otherwise we can do whatever you want.”

Richie grins, sliding his hands down to grip Eddie’s ass. “What if I said I don’t wanna leave this bed?”

“I’d say we have to get up to eat at some point, but otherwise sure, if that’s really what you want to do. I’m not gonna complain.” Eddie reels Richie in and kisses him warm and slow, even though he pulls back with his expression scrunched up. “Okay, I retract my previous statement, we also have to get up and brush our teeth. Your breath is rank, dude.” 

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to me on my birthday,” Richie says, leaning back in to kiss Eddie three times in rapid succession before he relents. “For real though… maybe we can go see a movie later? Get a bunch of snacks and sit in the back?”

Since moving in with Eddie and coming out to his parents, Richie is feeling more and more like he’d like to come out properly soon, but as it stands now he and Eddie are staying pretty quiet about things, so they don’t often go out for dates. Richie has vague half-memories of going to the movies with Eddie as a kid, wishing he could just hold Eddie’s hand over the armrest or something. It’d be nice, he thinks, to fulfill that childhood dream now. 

“Anything you want,” Eddie agrees. 

“You know what I want right _now?”_ Richie says, and then tightens his arms around Eddie’s middle and flops them both back onto the bed, blanketing himself over Eddie and kissing his face.

Eddie swats at him, laughing breathlessly. “Ow, Richie, you lunatic!”

“I’m sorry, did I hurt your delicate old man bones?” Richie says between kisses, snickering. Eddie squints at him.

“You can’t make those jokes anymore! You’re the same age as me now!”

“I know, and we’re practically decrepit,” Richie says faux-somberly. “We’re almost _thirty,_ Eds, I’m an old, old man.”

“You’re a drama queen,” Eddie says, hooking a leg around Richie’s waist and rolling them over so he’s on top of Richie instead. He raises an eyebrow, getting that bright-eyed look that makes Richie shiver in anticipation. 

“You gonna give me a birthday present now?” he asks, biting his tongue to keep from full-on grinning.

Eddie plants his hands firmly on the center of Richie’s chest. “I think I just might.”

They don’t spend all day in bed, but they definitely spend most of the morning there. It’s after eleven when Eddie finally drags Richie into the kitchen for breakfast, and then the two of them shower and get dressed so they can head out to the theater. 

It’s brisk out, still in the 30s, and the two of them walk so close together that their elbows bump as they duck their heads against the wind and head down to the subway station. It’s crowded, which gives Richie the excuse to rest his hand on Eddie’s lower back as they stand wedged into the middle of the subway car. Eddie’s face is flushed pink from the cold, and he reaches up covertly to push some of Richie’s wind-tousled hair back into place. There’s something about the look on his face, the fondness, that stirs Richie’s memory of his dream again. He thinks about standing in that big outdoor space, the rush of anticipation, watching for his friends to come over the hill —

The subway comes to a jarring stop, and Eddie grabs Richie’s arm to weave them through the throng of people and out into the station again. They walk the few blocks to the theater and Richie eyes the marquee, humming thoughtfully.

“Oh! We have to see that one,” Richie says, pointing to _Final Destination 2._

Eddie’s brow furrows. “Ugh, really?”

Richie jostles him with his elbow. “C’moooon, it’s my birthday!”

Eddie insists on buying the movie tickets and the armful of theater candy and popcorn (“This is part of your present, I’m helping you rot your teeth.” “Can’t wait to let my old man know, he’ll be thrilled.”) and they nab a seat in the back row of the mostly empty theater. The lights go down as they settle in, and before Richie can even think about doing the classic “pretend to yawn and put your arm over their shoulder” move, Eddie is shifting in his seat to rest his head on Richie’s shoulder, reaching to link their fingers together. Richie’s heart skips in his chest like he’s in middle school again, and he grins stupidly at the top of Eddie’s head as the previews begin.

“Am I even gonna be able to understand this one if I haven’t seen the first one?” Eddie hisses. “Or are you going to have to loudly whisper the whole plot in my ear like when we saw _Men in Black II_ last year?” 

Ignoring the (probably valid) implication that he doesn’t know how to whisper, Richie says, “Nah, you should be fine. It’ll be fun!”

As soon as the movie starts, though, Richie wonders if maybe he’s made a mistake in watching a _Final Destination_ movie with someone who analyzes risks for a living and has more anxiety in his tiny body than anyone Richie’s ever met in his life. God knows _he_ never wants to drive on the highway again after the opening scene. But when he chances a glance at Eddie, Eddie’s fucking _riveted._ He looks like he’s having the time of his goddamn life, while Richie cringes and yelps his way through every elaborate death scene. When the movie’s over, they both turn a lot of heads with how much they’re yelling and gesturing emphatically as they walk down the street back to the subway station.

“How the fuck did that shit not freak you out?! I’m never driving again!” Richie exclaims.

“Are you kidding me? That shit was hysterical, it was all so cheesy,” Eddie says. “That was fucking great, we need to rent the first one so I can see it now.”

Richie shakes his head. “You’re a fucking enigma to me, Kaspbrak.”

“Good.” Eddie glances around before furtively taking Richie’s hand and squeezing it once before letting go again so they can descend the stairs into the subway. Despite the chill in the air, Richie’s heart is warm.

His parents envelop them both in hugs the moment they walk through the door, and Richie pretends to be exasperated while secretly thrilled at how pink-faced and happy Eddie looks. Richie’s mom ushers them into the living room and the four of them sit around catching up for a bit before dinner. Richie lets himself fully relax when Eddie takes his hand again, where they’re sitting side-by-side on the couch. It’s not like he doesn’t _know_ he can be affectionate with Eddie in front of his parents now, but it’s still nerve-wracking to initiate shit. It’s always nice when Eddie seems to sense exactly what Richie would like to be doing and initiates it for him. 

Maggie keeps shooting him knowingly fond looks throughout dinner, and then Went brings out the birthday cake and gets Maggie and Eddie to join in on the _most_ off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” that Richie’s ever heard. After cake, Went gives Richie three vinyls from his own vintage collection, which both Richie and Eddie lose their shit over. 

It’s not until much later, when Eddie and Went are talking about cars or dental hygiene something equally boring that the two of them bond over, that Maggie pulls Richie aside. “Are you having a good birthday, hon?” she asks.

Richie smiles down at her. “Yeah,” he says honestly. “Best birthday I’ve had in a long time.”

“My little man,” she says fondly.

He laughs, embarrassed. “Ma, come on, I’m twenty-seven.” 

“I know, when did _that_ happen?” Maggie says. She squeezes his arm affectionately. “You seem happy, Richie. I haven’t seen you like this on your birthday since you were a kid.”

“I am happy,” he says. He considers for a moment asking her what she remembers from his childhood birthdays, but he knows her memory will be nearly as cloudy as his, and even if it’s not, Richie doesn’t exactly want to invoke the memory-sweats and puking on his birthday if he can help it. 

It’s late enough when they leave that Went and Maggie insist on paying for them to take a cab home instead of the subway, and when they get back to their apartment Richie puts on one of the vinyls his dad gave him, a Jerry Lee Lewis record, and flops back onto the couch with a satisfied sigh. Eddie sits down next to him and kicks his feet into Richie’s lap.

“This was such a good fuckin’ day,” Richie tells him, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. He grabs Eddie’s ankle. “Seriously, I’m pretty sure this is the best birthday I’ve had since I moved out of Derry.” 

“God, yeah, your fourteenth birthday,” Eddie says, laughing slightly. “You made us all go to the quarry because you wanted to show us some cassettes your parents got you, but you were so excited —”

“— I showed up like an hour early,” Richie finishes for him. He lifts his head up, eyes opening again. He didn’t remember that even a little bit until Eddie said something, but now it’s all rushing into his head with that familiar dizziness, and he realizes all at once what his dream was the night before.

He’d been at the quarry on a chilly March day in Derry, so hyped up to see his friends that he couldn’t sit still, and the hour felt like it lasted an eon. But unlike every other iteration of this dream that Richie’s had over the years, this time he saw them cresting the hill, the bright morning sun casting them in silhouette as they made their way toward him. And the rest of his friends, the ones Richie can only vaguely remember from the one photograph he has to go by, they were blurry and out of focus even as they got closer. But Eddie he could see just fine. The fond exasperation on his face, the painstakingly and unevenly wrapped present clutched in his hand — Richie’s heart leapt to his throat as his excitement turned into full-on butterflies.

_This_ was the dream he had the night before, and it wasn’t a dream at all, it was a memory. That’s what really happened that day. His friends showed up, because of course they had. They always did. Richie blinks back to the present, Jerry Lee Lewis banging on the piano in the background as he turns to look at Eddie with wide eyes. 

“You okay?” Eddie asks, sitting up straighter.

Richie nods. “Yeah, just… remembering.”

Eddie, who has grown used to Richie’s usual response to remembering being puking his guts out, says, “Are you… good?” He gestures vaguely at Richie’s stomach.

“Yeah,” Richie says with a faint laugh. “I think, uh, I think it was something I already remembered without realizing it?” 

“Okay,” Eddie says, puzzled. He leans forward, bending his knees so he can scoot close enough to give Richie a kiss. “Well hey, I’m glad you had a good day. You deserve it.”

Richie cups the back of Eddie’s head to reel him in and kiss him again, slower. “All thanks to you, Eddie my love.”

“Love you, Rich,” Eddie says against his lips.

Richie feels light and almost floaty with the relief this new memory has brought him. That piece that for so long felt carved out of him is mended again, the truth of the memory overriding the pain of the nightmare. He thinks that whatever it is that gives him these fucked up dreams won’t be able to use that one against him anymore. There’s an edge of melancholy to it, since Richie and Eddie still haven’t figured out how to find any of their other friends or remember them more clearly, but Richie knows they’ll figure it out eventually. As he and Eddie go to sleep that night, Richie thinks fondly of the future, of a birthday like the one he had thirteen years ago, with all his friends by his side again. 

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday reechie i love u.... 
> 
> find me on twitter @hermanngottiieb or tumblr @joshuawashinton 
> 
> fic title from no rain by blind melon, which is on my playlist for the first fic in this series and is very richie. ok thanks for reading, pls leave me a comment if you so desire! <3 byeee


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